Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using phonograph turntables and a DJ mixer. The term was created in 1994 by DJ Babu to describe the difference between a DJ who just plays records, and one who actually performs, by touching and moving the records to manipulate sound. The word was never meant to be the actual title of the art form. It was regularly stated as an example, while explaining the need for a new word to describe a newly emerging and totally unique instrumental artform. The intention was for the original creators of the artform to confer, and decide on a title. While the idea of the need for a new word spread, some DJs just began to use the example word "turntablist" before the originators had a chance to proclaim an actual title.
DJ Babu has defined a turntablist as "One who has the ability to improvise on a phonograph turntable. One who uses the turntable in the spirit of a musical instrument;" while the Battlesounds documentary film suggests a definition of :"A musician, a hip-hop disc jockey who in a live/spontaneous situation can manipulate or restructure an existing phonograph recording (in combination with an audio mixer) to produce or express a new composition that is unrecognisable from its original ingredients."
